With a stroke of his pen, President Donald Trump pardoned, commuted the sentences or ordered the dismissal of the cases of more than 1,500 people charged with crimes from assaulting police officers to destroying government property related to their conduct on the attempted insurrection on Jan. 6 2021.

Among them are eight Nevadans who were at the Capitol riot for the certification of then-President-elect Joe Biden’s electoral victory. The pardons granted are unconditional, covering all conduct that the Department of Justice had charged rioters for. Trump also ordered the Bureau of Prisons to facilitate the immediate release of those who had already been found guilty.

“This is a big one,” Trump said while signing. “We hope they come out tonight, frankly.”

Fourteen individuals received commutations of their sentences rather than pardons — meaning convictions will remain on their permanent records, but they are now free to leave federal prison. Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, who started the militia group while living in Las Vegas in 2009, is among that group. 

Rhodes, who attended UNLV, worked on Ron Paul’s 2008 campaign in Nevada and participated in the 2014 armed standoff at Cliven Bundy’s ranch, was less than two years into serving an 18-year sentence for seditious conspiracy, among other charges. Rhodes told News4 Washington that he had been released from federal custody on Monday night.

Eight other Nevadans were charged by the Justice Department for their conduct at the Capitol riot and arrested in Nevada between 2021 through 2024. With Trump’s executive order, their crimes have now been pardoned or their cases will soon be dropped.

The D.C. Federal Defender’s Office did not respond to a question about whether the Nevadans had been officially released. Some of the hundreds of people granted clemency are currently serving sentences or awaiting trial and will be freed; others will see their probations end. 

The Jan. 6 defendants in Nevada will now have civil rights restored as well. All convicted felons in Nevada have their voting rights restored upon release, but are barred from owning or purchasing firearms. With a presidential pardon in hand, the Jan. 6 defendants will now regain gun rights.

Josiah Kenyon

Josiah Kenyon, 37, of Winnemucca, was arrested in Reno in December 2021. He was charged with eight crimes related to the Capitol riot, including assaulting, resisting or impeding certain officers using a dangerous weapon or inflicting bodily injury. 

Kenyon, while wearing a Jack Skellington costume from The Nightmare Before Christmas, entered the U.S. Capitol during the insurrection, broke a window and forcibly attacked multiple police officers with a pylon and a table leg with a protruding nail, according to filings in his case. 

Kenyon eventually pleaded guilty to two counts of assault on a federal officer with a dangerous weapon as part of a plea agreement in September 2022. He was sentenced to 72 months in prison in April 2023. Kenyon has been serving out his term in a medium-security prison in Leavenworth, Kansas, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. 

Kenyon received a full pardon from Trump. His lawyer did not respond to a request for comment.

Nathan DeGrave

DeGrave, 35, was arrested in his hometown of Las Vegas in January 2021 and charged with six counts related to his actions on Jan. 6, including assaulting, resisting or impeding officers. 

According to case filings, DeGrave coordinated with two other friends via Facebook to plan to be at the Capitol on the day of the electoral certification. He asked in a Dec. 31, 2020, Facebook post, “Who can shoot and has excellent aim and can teach me today or tomorrow,” adding in the comments that he was asking “for a very patriotic cause.” 

Over the next several days, DeGrave posted frequently on Facebook about his intent to show up to the U.S. Capitol and privately chatted with other “patriots,” as DeGrave called them, to coordinate bringing guns, per DeGrave’s statement of defense.

With two others, DeGrave drove from Tennessee to Washington, D.C., with weapons, including pistols, knives and bear mace. He attended the “Stop the Steal” rally, then went to lunch in Virginia, where he watched Trump give a speech, believing the then-president to be instructing attendees to go to the Capitol. 

Prosecutors said DeGrave then returned to the Capitol with bear spray and protective gear. He recorded a video saying, “It’s Dr. Death in the building and it’s about to go down.”

DeGrave then entered the Capitol and, as part of a crowd, shoved Capitol Police officers, putting up his fists to pantomime boxing them and pounding his chest. 

He eventually exited the U.S. Capitol after cheering from the gallery of the Senate, shouting “we f—king did it” and “our f—king house now” as he left.

DeGrave then deleted all footage of the riot from his phone and social media; he was arrested in Las Vegas weeks later. He originally pleaded not guilty, but then agreed in 2022 to plead guilty to a count of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding and assaulting, resisting or impeding officers. 

In May 2023, he was sentenced to 37 months in prison, having said in court that he “naively supported the former president as violence escalated” and wrote to the judge that he had deep regret over his actions. He was released from custody in September 2024.

While in jail awaiting trial, he wrote a letter criticizing the conditions in jail as “inhumane” and said he was being “unfairly prosecuted” by a “weaponized DOJ” over its “blatant resentment of my respect for President Donald Trump.” His letter was publicized by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). 

After Trump won re-election, DeGrave began fundraising to secure a pardon and rebuild his life. To date, he has raised nearly $5,500.

Derek Dodder

Dodder, a 32-year-old Las Vegas resident who attended the Capitol riot, was arrested in October 2023 after law enforcement officials used footage and a search warrant for location data associated with his email account to confirm that he was inside the building on Jan. 6.

Dodder was charged with four counts — none violent — and pleaded guilty to two of them as part of a plea agreement. He was sentenced in July to 14 days of prison time and a year of probation. Dodder was released from prison in October 2024.

With a pardon, he now is freed from the terms of his probation.

Brandon Kelly Dillard

Dillard, a 41-year-old Las Vegas resident, was arrested in March 2023. Nicknamed the “Spider Nazi,” he was seen wearing spider-patterned clothing and scaling the walls of the Capitol and emerging through a window in the Senate.

Dillard was charged with numerous counts related to his intent to disturb a government proceeding and disorderly conduct. In November of 2023, he pleaded guilty to a disorderly conduct count. He was sentenced to four months of prison time and a year of supervised release. He was released from prison in September 2024.

The pardon will end his remaining time in supervised release.

Bradley Scott Nelson

Nelson, a commercial truck driver from North Las Vegas, was arrested in March 2023 after a tipster referred the FBI to his Twitter account, where he wrote that “I was one of those in the breach…at the [C]apitol.”

Further tweets from his account bragged that he was “first through the door” and suggested that “patriot Americans” would have taken control of the building had they brought guns. The FBI then used phone records and footage to document Nelson’s participation in entering the Capitol.

Although he was part of the mob pushing towards police, Nelson was seen on video telling another rioter, “If we go beyond this point, we’ll be going to jail tonight.”

Still, Nelson ran up the Capitol stairs as part of a group that forced police to retreat, and entered the building. While inside the Capitol, Nelson was caught on video telling other rioters that “cocaine Mitch” — a likely reference to then-Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) — was “on the goddamn bullseye” and promised to regroup and return to the Capitol that night.

Nelson was subsequently charged with counts of disrupting government business and knowingly entering a restricted building. In August 2024, while awaiting trial, Nelson was again ordered to be arrested over threats he made to top officials. Those included posting a photo of U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland with crosshairs on his head and, in a separate post, writing that he “hope[s] somebody cuts your throat from ear to ear” with a photo of Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett over her dissent in a Supreme Court case concerning the scope of charges levied against Jan. 6 participants. 

Nelson was also confrontational and combative with the FBI agents who interviewed him, according to his remand order. Nelson took a plea deal in October; he had been awaiting sentencing.

On Tuesday, citing Trump’s executive order, the government moved to dismiss his case.

Christine Barrello

Barrello, a Las Vegas resident, was arrested in May 2024 on disorderly and disruptive conduct charges related to her participation in the Jan. 6 riot. Video footage places Barrello at the Capitol that day, including footage of her entering the building through a window.

Barrello took a plea agreement in November, pleading guilty to two nonviolent charges. She was awaiting sentencing, but the government, in accordance with Trump’s pardon, filed a motion to dismiss her case Tuesday.

Nolan Freeman

Freeman, a former actor with credits including “NCIS” and “Shameless,” was arrested in Carson City in March 2024. 

A resident of Dayton in Lyon County, the 34-year-old was charged with four counts related to his participation in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, including disorderly conduct and knowingly entering a restricted building. The FBI’s Reno office received information that Freeman had participated in the riot in late 2022; using phone records, the FBI discerned that Freeman had been inside the Capitol during the insurrection.

Footage from the day shows Freeman entering the Capitol through a window and was spotted by cameras at multiple locations within the building. 

Freeman accepted a plea agreement in September, pleading guilty to two misdemeanors. Last week, the government requested that Freeman be sentenced to 30 days of jail time, three years of probation and 60 hours of community service.

But before a judge could rule, the government, under the direction of Trump’s executive order, submitted a new motion requesting Freeman’s case be dismissed.